Augmented Reality in Recruitment : is the AR resume relevant yet?

Written by Nicolas Macheda

Virtual and Augmented Reality have always been futuristic trends filling the hearts of tech-enthusiast with excitement. More so ever since the beginning of the decade. Eight years later though, in 2018, it is sad to notice that nothing much has happened. With Google dropping the Glass project, and the major VR Headsets from 2016 getting polarising reviews, there is still a long road to go before Augmented Reality reaches the HR World… or does it?

AR Resume : more than a gimmick?

Here and there, you might have seen those videos popping on LinkedIn.

At first glance, it looks amazing! A new interactive tech opening an ocean of possibilities… Unfortunately, it is also very unreal.

Most of those clips showcasing AR products are actually pure video editing.. It is nowadays far easier to create a neat ” Augmented Reality ” experience by manipulating images than actually developing an AR project and recording the outcome. All that is left is internet buzzing and a short-lived renewal of hope for such trend.

The main barrier here is not so much technological, but has to do with portability. With freely accessible development framework such as Apple ARKit, any tech-savvy enthusiast could create an AR product from scratch. What makes it hard to democratise nowadays is the portability. To view a product under Augmented Reality, the public has to download special apps (such as Zappar) that sometimes need to fit the specifications of the content produced..

New Hope rising from the ancestor of Mixed Reality : The QR code

Software being the main weak point of AR penetration in the market, it also means that tangible steps can be taken to solve this problem! Let’s take the example of mixed reality’s ancestor : the QR code.

They were first created in 1994 by Denso Wave, a subsidiary of Toyota, as a mean to add tracking in manufacturing and simplify logistic. Quickly, their scanning speed and unparalleled accuracy to convey data drove them to the front stage and Marketeers from all over the world saw an opportunity. This was the future!

As we all witnessed, it wasn’t. Relabelled as gimmicky because the end customer would not have easy access to a mean of scanning them, they slowly disappeared from the sight. Until late 2017 when Apple launched iOS 11 for the iPhone. The major system update incorporated scanning of QR Codes onto the native camera app of the smartphone. With millions of users worldwide having access to this technology, the rebirth of QR codes is almost certain.

Augmented Reality in Recruitment

What if passing a resume, cover letter or visit card through the lense opened up a new world of interactive medias? Candidates in China are perhaps more familiar than us with the technology. Internet giant Baidu has released a suite of AR Apps directed to consumer and being already used by a billion monthly active users.

Back in the old world, augmented reality for candidates is mostly used to showcase technical competency. A CV within the CV. That’s for example the case of AR developer Oscar Falmer who made quite the buzz, reaching a million impression on Twitter with his AR Business Card video:

Although still very rare, companies are trying to incorpore mixed reality experiences in their recruitment process.

It is for example the case of Jaguar who teamed up with the English music band Gorillaz to build an AR skill-based assessment game using one of the band virtual character. Focused on recruitment of software engineers, the app mostly gives challenge to code-crackers.

Have you ever thought yourself about using mixed reality to enhance a job description or to apply at a company?